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| Scott Smoot, bike, and Earth Read the article. |
My only competition has been with my own times and distances, recorded below. I briefly tried racing, about which I quote Flannery O'Connor: "I'm glad I've went once, but I ain't ever goin' back." I have much the same feeling about mountain biking.
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| Me, ca. 1994; Jason's photo |
I'm pretty loyal to my equipment, some of it for 20 years. I rode a red bike for 15 years before I got a black one in 2008. It's by Specialized; I don't know much more about it. I still call it my new bike. With replacements to all the components in 2019, it may deserve that moniker.
Jason, a quiet kid in my 8th grade History class back in 1992, got me started riding. I needed to lose weight; he needed something to do during the summer. For the next few years, we rode hundreds of miles around Mississippi. Recently (2015) we've re-connected, visiting each other to ride our birthdays in miles. (Read about one such ride at Thanksgiving 2016, here.)*omitting 2009: See below.
Completing that tour a few months into my retirement, I expanded my plans to make a second tour of the world.
I've added virtual selfies to my written tributes to places on the road where I've "lived or loved." Above, from top left: Quebec City, Quebec coast, Duke University, the north Atlantic, Dublin, Iceland, Maine. Here's the rundown, adding the latest year on top.
Rides in 2024 I rode 2432 miles, average speed 14 mph, and reached mile 19,050 in my second world tour. Will I make it to Hawaii by mile 25,000? That's the plan. I'm taking a shortcut through India and Southeast Asia to do it.
Having cycled through Moscow (virtually) in 2023, I found myself east of any places I'd ever visited. So I plotted the rest of my itinerary with places I've loved from a distance.
Athens, Greece is the wellspring of stories important to me even before I knew my alphabet, so an episode of Star Trek about the end of the gods touched me: Who Mourns for Apollo? Songwriter Joni Mitchell lived for a time in Matala on the island of Crete, where she had a love affair celebrated in song: Where Carey Met Joni.
Since then, I've been riding around the Holy Land. Every morning, reading Old and New Testament, I have Jerusalem on my Mind. Cycling south through Jordan, I paused for a selfie in the abandoned city of Petra where my friend Susan Rouse had once visited. I pay her tribute in Pedaling through Petra. The Red Sea was farther away than I thought, and such a release when I got there -- making it a great image for retirement The Red Sea Parts.
During one of my 107 rides of 2024, I had an experience both frightening and wonderful. In September on a warm Saturday, during my weekly round trip to Stone Mountain, I saw the entrance to a mine shaft that I'd never noticed before. Of course, that couldn't be true, and I woke up with a start, still riding the usual trail. At the next stop light, my friend Susan was there saying, "Get off that bike now!" But I told her that she couldn't really be there, and the experience wasn't dangerous so much as wonderful. I had stopped at this intersection, hadn't I? Continuing my ride over the next several minutes, I counted ten times that I had the sensation of waking up, but I didn't feel a break in the continuity of the trail ride. It was as if my eyes were on the road ahead and my mind was playing a movie of myself in other places on a screen above ground. The whole episode lasted about ten minutes.
I've since heard an ultra-marathoner talk about her hallucinations, and I find that these aren't uncommon. My only explanation is that I had forgotten to bring my usual mid-ride banana.
2023 In May, a doctor confirmed my suspicion that an old inguinal hernia had re-opened. He told me to ease up on rides until weeks after the surgery in August. At the same time, I started a part-time desk job at my church. Together, these restricted me to short pre-workday rides. I went 3083 miles, 15.2 mph. On my tour, that took me from Salzburg (see My Role in The Sound of Music 02/2023) to Istanbul (see Cycling Istanbul, 10/2023).
2022 I broke my previous record riding 4868 miles at 15.4 mph. My virtual bike tour took me to the coast of Quebec where I spent some weeks in 1987; see Tour de Quebec, 04/2022. From there, I rode my bike to Iceland and then to Europe on water (a trick I learned from The Flash), resting for the winter in Milano (see Buon Appetito from Milano, 11/2022).
2021: First Year of Retirement. Every school day that I rode, I had to keep repeating to myself, "You've earned this." The pleasure of the ride is compounded by the pleasure of freedom. With so much time in the saddle, I broke all of my distance records in 2021: 4755 miles, 162 rides, average speed 15.4. My fastest ride was August 25, when a younger man passed me going east from Hiram on the Silver Comet, and I kept up for 10 miles until he stopped - I thanked him for my longest fast ride in 20 years (around 23 m.p.h. with him, average 17.8 for the whole ride). Another memorable ride was September 13 when I rode an hour or so at high speed chatting with musician and biker Jordan Scanella, in town playing in the pit for Hamilton.
Since June of 2020, I've been tracking my miles on a map of the United States, virtually revisiting places I've lived or loved, then writing tributes to those places on my blog with virtual postcards. I began 2021 out west in Elko NE. From there, I visited Reno NE and San Francisco CA, then rode south to Los Angeles. Starting back east through Arizona, I paused for a photo op with John Wayne in Monument Valley, then rode on to Santa Fe NM, Midland TX, Shreveport LA, Jackson MS, Montgomery AL, to my home in Marietta GA. Heading north, I crossed Durham NC, Washington DC, Shillington PA, and Boston MA. Bar Harbor is a good place to spend the remaining days of Christmas.
Rides in 2019. I got in more than 3000 miles between January 1 and December 28, 800 before summer break started. Memorial Day was a great time to ride in Atlanta, as all the cars seemed to be somewhere else. But I post a "Dark Reflection for Early Summer" (05/28/2019). Jason joined me for the Stone Mountain loop, and we stopped at Avondale's "My Parents' Basement" ( a comic - book - themed diner) for lunch, 7/13. A tree falling in a storm just missed me (07/18/2019). I clocked a record time Labor Day weekend (09/02/2019). I remembered a training tip that may move the Stone Mountain ride to a new level (09/22/2019). A ride on Yom Kippur has become a tradition (10/10/2019). I posted a picture celebrating 3000 Miles for the year (12/19/2019).
Rides in 2018 - From January 21st to December 29, 101 rides, 2976 miles, 15 m.p.h. average speed. The birthday ride of 59 miles included a thunderstorm at the midpoint. Jason joined me September 1; I joined him in Flowood MS November 22. My rides to Stone Mountain involve a lot of starting and stopping and some car traffic, usually around 13 m.p.h., but I broke 14.1 m.p.h. 9/29/2018.
[Photo: Until 8/12/2018, all my fastest rides of 2018 have be
en 16.9 mph. On 9/2/2018, 23 miles at 17.7!]
2016 2600 miles, 76 rides, average speed 15.4 m.p.h. I started the summer at my highest weight, 176 lbs. By September, I was down to 151 lbs. After that, for the first time, I didn't put on my "winter weight."
2015 2068 15.0 75 rides April to October, Jason joined me 7/29 56 mi.
2014 1422 15.0 48 rides 5/26-9/13 55 @ 16.7
2013 - 1223 15.3 42 rides 5/15-9/30 54 @ 15.5
2012 - During a break around Easter, I rode; this was my old dog Bo's last week, put to sleep on the morning of Good Friday. I adopted feisty Mia that same week, to be companion for Bo's old buddy, Luis. 1275 15.7 46 rides 4/2-8/25
2011 751 15.2 21 rides 6/11-8/13
2010 - 936 15.7 32 rides 4/,5/, 6/05-9/25
2009 - No stats. Don't know why not. See below for my theories.
2008 - In May, a group of seventh grade boys asked to join me for a ride, around 20 miles. I used to ride up to Ellijay, GA, for a 30 mile loop to Rocky Springs. This was the last time I recorded a ride there. 460 miles, 17.1 mph, 16 rides.
2007 717 miles, 16.0 mph, 21 rides, a little before June 6 - Aug. 1
2006 - I twice passed by the site of a murder in the woods off the trail in Hiram, GA. The body was found the next day, as I was again passing by. Ever since, there has been a shrine to Jennifer Ewing at that spot. During another ride, a doe dived into the woods while her two fauns ran alongside me, one on each side. I believe this was the last year that I included rides up Kennesaw Mountain in my routine. 800 miles, 17.5 mph, 35 rides, May 28 - October 2
2005 - I got my new helmet. Still have it. Still think of it as new. Also, for two weeks in early July, I watched over my Aunt Harriet at cousin Ann Bloch's home in Chanhassen, MN. During my short, slow rides around the neighborhood, I saw Prince's estate, and bright yellow finches criss-crossing in the air ahead of me. 361 miles, 16.9 mph, 14 rides, April 4 - Sept. 11
2004 - 724 miles, 17.4 mph, 31 rides, a few before May 29- Sept. 2
2003 - Of all my rides, the one that felt best was 47 miles at 17 m.p.h. on a trail that stretches across Ohio. One terminus is Lake Erie; another is in Indian Hills, a suburb of Cincinnati, down the street from the home of my beloved Aunt Blanche and Uncle Jack. I was staying with them to attend the opera. The weather was glorious; the scenery resonated with childhood memories; the trail itself was smooth and well-shaded. In 2007, Aunt Blanche, by then a widow, welcomed me again. 1057 miles, 17.0 mph, 42 rides, April 12 - July 26
2002 726 miles, 17.2 mph, 35 rides, April 14 - Aug. 2
2001 - I rode mostly around Allatoona Lake and a sleepy town of Emerson, GA, now a national destination for teen baseball leagues.
492 miles, 18.3 m.p.h., 23 rides, June 29 - Aug - 21.
Between 2001-2016, I rode more than 16,000 miles. All the stats, laid out by year, reveal a couple of mysteries.
First, I find no stats for 2009, and no reason why. My personal journal refers to biking and swimming that year, and my blog posts continued unabated. Maybe my duties that year as Senior Warden of the church and Daddy to my two old dogs Bo and Luis just took all my attention.
Second, there's a big difference between stats before 2009 and those after. In the eight years before, I covered 5337 miles in 220 rides, averaging 24 miles per ride at 17.2 m.p.h. In six years from 2010 to 2016, I covered 10,275 miles in 340 rides, average 30 miles per ride at 15.3 m.p.h. Why the difference?
Two things happened around 2009 that might account for the change. Disgusted by waning stamina in 2008, I bought Cycling after Fifty for advice. The book said, first, get over it; second, eat both during and after a ride; finally, alternate longer slow rides with short fast ones. That would explain some of the added distance. Besides, as I superannuate, the preparation for my annual birthday ride necessarily adds miles to the weeks leading up to July 15.Then, in 2010, I began to make a circuit from the MLK center in Atlanta to Stone Mountain, 38 miles around 12 m.p.h. every Saturday. Taking out those leisurely Saturday rides, with all their starting and stopping for traffic crossings, I find that my average speed jumps from 15.0 to 16.4 (for the year 2017, as of June 18).
[Photo: Selfie at the terminus of the Stone Mountain loop, close to I-75 and the King and Carter centers in Atlanta - Sept. 3, 2016]
Were I to remove all those slow Stone Mountain rides from my stats, the huge drop in my average speed would shrink.
[Photo: Age 55, at the entrance to the Brushy Mountain tunnel, where a whisper at one end sounds at the other end]
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